New Long Beach Civic Center proposals to be discussed

LONG BEACH >> After years of study, the City Council may start a process that could lead to the construction of the largest public-private Civic Center in the nation.

Council members will be asked Tuesday to authorize preparing and issuing a request for proposals to a short list of three developers to remake the 16-acre block of Ocean Boulevard downtown containing City Hall, the Main Library, associated parking, closed state courthouse and Lincoln Park.

If approved, the proposals request would be scheduled for release in the spring, according to the city. Responses would be scheduled to be received by the end of 2014 and a council decision could come in the first quarter of 2015.

A recent proposal envisions a 300,000-square-foot City Hall, about a third larger than the current 40-year-old building, to accommodate city departments renting offices at other locations for $2.1 million annually. The new complex could also include a 200,000-square-foot headquarters for the Port of Long Beach and a 50,000-to -70,000-square-foot library, which is less than half the size of the current Main Library.

Michael Conway, the city’s director of business and development, declined to discuss the total cost of building a new Civic Center in a Press-Telegram article earlier this month, but he said it could tally between $300 and $400 per square foot. The estimate could add up to about $230 million, not including parking garage or park renovations.

In February, the council asked for an update on a 2005 report on City Hall that found seismic weaknesses in the 40-year-old structure’s concrete wing panels, vertical trusses, columns and beams.

The conclusions confirm the deficiencies, officials said, but declined to elaborate, saying more details will be presented at the council meeting.

A staff report pointed to an industry-standard called the facility condition index, which reflects the cost of repair and alteration of a building compared to cost of replacing the structure.

By the measure, a building with a score of 10 percent is considered in poor condition, and a structure with a score of 50 percent or higher should be replaced instead of repaired. City Hall has a facility condition index score of 52 percent, and the Main Library’s rating is 73 percent, according to the report.

Associated costs to seismically retrofit and upgrade City Hall are estimated at $194 million, or $685 per square foot, said officials, who add on $70 million in maintenance and upgrades over 35 years to push the total to $264 million. The building would still not be habitable in the event of a major earthquake.

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Councilman James Johnson, a prior opponent of building the Civic Center anew, said he didn’t feel like past studies on the condition of the building went into enough depth. He described himself as open to hearing more detailed data and is intrigued by a staff claim that a new facility could cost less on an annual basis than what the city spends on the current complex.

“At the same time, we need to do it in a way that doesn’t threaten general fund dollars providing core services,” Johnson said.

According to officials, Long Beach pays $12.57 million annually in associated Civic Center costs, including $7.84 million for operations, $2.6 million for debt service and $2.1 million for the off-site leases to place employees who could be returned to a larger administration building downtown.

Seven developers were interviewed by the city this year for their qualifications to come up with plans for the Civic Center. The three chosen are Related California of Irvine; Long Beach CiviCore Alliance, a limited liability company established this year financed by the Macquarie Group of Vancouver; and Plenary-Edgemoor Civic Partners of Costa Mesa.

A public-private partnership to build a new Civic Center as discussed by the city would involve a company designing, financing, building, operating and maintaining the facility for 35 years, like the newly opened, $339.5 million George Deukmejian Courthouse on Magnolia Avenue.

The arrangement is lauded by elected officials because it places the responsibility of design, building and financing a project on a private developer, presumably in a more streamlined way for taxpayers.

Yet a Legislative Analyst’s Office report released in November last year concluded that projects like the Deukmejian Courthouse used cost comparisons that “were based on several assumptions that are subject to significant uncertainty and interpretation, and tended to favor public-private partnerships.”

Removing the assumptions resulted in better value with traditional procurement, according to the report.

Funding for consultant costs to develop the request for proposals would be requested at a meeting in November and be paid for by the Civic Center Fund.

Tuesday’s council action also calls for establishing a committee consisting of members of council and the Board of Harbor Commissioners to guide the entire process.

About the Author

Eric Bradley covers Long Beach City Hall and politics. He joined the Press-Telegram in August 2011 and previously reported for the Daily Breeze and the Cincinnati Enquirer. Reach the author at eric.bradley@langnews.com
or follow Eric on Twitter: EricBradleyPT.